Customer Story | Sept 2025
How Hackensack Meridian Health Improved Staffing Efficiency and Visibility
Customer profile:
Improved schedule adherence and full-time utilization
Optimized staffing to reduce labor spend
Lower labor costs and eliminate enrollment overhead
Standardized staffing on a unified, scalable platform
Hackensack Meridian Health embarked on a transformative journey to optimize their staffing processes with Smart Square®, a predictive scheduling tool that revolutionized workforce management across their hospitals.
Faced with outdated systems lacking modern capabilities like self-scheduling, Hackensack Meridian Health struggled with technical issues and inefficiencies. This hindered their ability to integrate different platforms and dynamically address staffing needs, leading to significant full-time equivalent (FTE) leakage. These are the hours an employee did not work but should have according to their FTE commitment.
Hackensack Meridian Health chose Smart Square®; a dynamic scheduling and staff deployment tool designed to empower healthcare providers by delivering precise staffing forecasts through predictive analytics. The transition was strategic and phased, initially adopted by five hospitals and later expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet critical staffing needs. Smart Square® provided detailed dashboards, offering a comprehensive view of staffing requirements and enabling informed decision-making.
By focusing on a single KPI, FTE Leakage, Hackensack Meridian Health achieved significant cost savings in under a year. In 2023, Tara Claudio and her team collaborated with nurse managers to monitor scheduling practices and ensure all staff fulfilled their full FTE commitments.
6.5% reduction in FTE Leakage compared to the previous year
$616,000 in cost
Discover how AI-powered scheduling helps your organization fill shifts faster, balance workloads, and improve satisfaction across every department.
